


Never, Never So Unequivocal

by bloodofthepen



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Rumbelle Showdown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-28
Updated: 2014-04-28
Packaged: 2018-02-14 23:34:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2207223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodofthepen/pseuds/bloodofthepen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rumpelstiltskin discovers that Baelfire is trapped in Neverland.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never, Never So Unequivocal

**Author's Note:**

> My Round 2 qualifying/winning entry in the 2014 Rumbelle Showdown, published under the name ‘Seren Meade’. 
> 
> Bracket Prompt: bad moon rising, perhaps, Neverland’s mother Belle
> 
> A/N: Belle is very nearly eighteen (for reasons of ages in a FTL kind of world mean very different things than they do now; also plot). She thwarts Regina and returns to Rumpelstiltskin after her adventures, and now resides in the Dark Castle while Rumple continues to try to locate and find a way to Baelfire, laying down plans for the curse, among other things.

The din was tremendous, a great roar that swept the castle and rattled it to its very foundations, the floor leapt and writhed and Belle tumbled to the carpet, book flying from her hand to skitter away beneath the table. The fire burning in the hearth winked out as though smothered by some frigid breath of wind and somewhere, glass tinkled and shattered, the sound crashing against her ears, echoing through the halls, but Belle could see no damage beyond her fall. She staggered to her feet, though the flagstones bucked, her stomach turning.

“Rumpelstiltskin!”

Her feet got tangled up together with the ground’s tumbling and she barely caught herself, nose inches away from the floor. She crawled this time, steadier on four limbs than two, determined to reach the door and the stairs. If this were some sort of assault on the Dark One’s territory…

“Rumpelstiltskin!” Her voice barely carried though the great hall, let alone over the crashing, the deafening roar, the creaking of the walls and doors on their hinges.

Belle set her jaw, pushing her fear to the bottom of her chest where it lay tightly coiled, but harmless—for now. She shuffled forward, trying not to tangle her skirts around her legs.

It would be a long trek to the tower this way.

\---

Reach it she did, a few tumbles and several bruises later. Belle paid them no mind. The sound was louder here, each crack enough to reach deep into her skull, the roar—of magic, she now realized, not some great, conjured wind at all—rattling her very bones.

Belle forgot all of these things when she reached the sight inside.

Every table, chair, bookcase, overturned; dishes and apparatus smashed to bits, air crackling with the electric, bittersweet tang of magic, hot enough to seep into Belle’s lungs and fester. Amongst all this: the hissing red mists, the magic, the destruction, Rumple knelt before the spinning wheel, head cradled in his hands, claws tangled, tugging, in his hair, lips twisted into a snarl.

She went to him.

“Rumple!” Belle staggered, tripped, caught her foot on some hopelessly smashed article—kept moving. She laid her hands on leather-clad shoulders, leveled her face with his.

“Rumple,” she said, more gently, sliding her hands up and squeezing his arms.

The din cased immediately, her ears sounding a high-pitched complaint; the magic sundered and vanished, leaving a barren vacuum, Belle gasping for breath as though the air had been snap-dried and filled with ash. His hands shook as he placed them on her shoulders.

“Belle?” he croaked.

She stifled her coughs, shoulders shaking. “Yes, Rumple.” She offered a small smile. “I’m here.”

“I—Belle.” A soothing warmth spread, gentle, from Rumpelstiltskin’s fingers, all the tightness in her chest eased; the ringing faded from her ears. “Belle—why did you come up here?”

Her thumbs stroked along the silken sleeves of his shirt, fingers pressed into the leather of his vest. “You were shaking the whole castle. I had to see what was wrong—it could have been an attack—”

“The whole—” Guilt overtook his features. “Oh, Belle, I’m sorry… I—you weren’t supposed to—I could have hurt—”

“Shh, it’s all right, Rumple—I’m all right. A little shaken up is all.” She smiled, gave his arm a gentle, reassuring squeeze. “Please, what happened? What’s wrong?”

He cast his golden eyes to the floor, darkness clouding his brow. “I’ve… found my son.”

“But, Rumple, that must be good news.” He would not meet her eyes. Her heart leapt to her throat. “Or—unless—”

“He’s alive, but he is where I cannot go—not with the curse.” His fingers tightened on her shoulders, lips pulling back from his teeth. “ _I’m so close, Belle_.”

“Where is he?”

Rumpelstiltskin closed his eyes, the answer a disgusted hiss on his tongue: “Neverland.”

Belle knew of this place—there was a story of it in her library, with copious corrections and scrawled notes all over its margins in Rumpelstiltskin’s hand. “But… you’ve been there before.”

He released the breath he’d been holding in a dark chuckle. “Perhaps you haven’t noticed, Belle, but I’m a few hundred years an adult at this time. When I visited, I was but a child.”

There was only one reply in her mind. “Perhaps I could go.”

His head snapped up immediately.

“I don’t know what Peter Pan would want with me, but I could tell stories, maybe, and depending on your definition of adulthood, I—”

“No.”

She frowned. “No?”

“I won’t let you, Belle—I can’t—”

Belle shook her head and pulled him to her chest. Rumpelstiltskin stiffened, tried to push back, but she would not allow it, arms tight around him. “Rumple,” she said. “Let me help.”

His exasperated sigh stirred her hair, but he let his hands rest lightly at her waist.

“It’ll take some planning, and you might even have to make me appear a bit younger, but we could do it. We could do it, Rumple.”

He buried his nose in Belle’s shoulder and his fingers clenched in the folds of her dress, his reply muffled: “Whatifhedoesn’twanttocomeback.”

Belle’s brow furrowed—but as soon as she understood, her arms tightened, one hand immediately stroking his hair. “Rumple… no matter what, you are still his father, and Baelfire is alone. He’ll understand in time.” She pulled him closer, so that he was nearly in her lap, fingers patiently untangling the damage he’d done to his curls, knot by knot, until they could card through it like silk. “When I’m there, I can talk with him, ask him: you would know for sure—isn’t that better than never knowing?”

A slow nod against her shoulder. “Yes,” he said softly, raising his head. “If you’re sure.”

Belle smiled and gently parted them, touching his cheek lightly as she sat back. “ _I’m_  sure, but you have to be sure, too. Whatever you choose, I’ll stand by you.”

Rumpelstiltskin’s brow furrowed, his golden eyes flicking back and forth as though across letters on an unseen page. He nodded, gently. “Yes. Yes—but… there is much to plan, Belle, and much more to explain. We’ll have to be careful—precise. This will take time.” He met her eyes. “I won’t lose you, too.”

“You won’t,” she said, and took his hand, smoothed away the desperation with a stroke of her fingers.

The tension around his eyes eased, edges of his lips softening. “I won’t.”

Belle pulled them to their feet and offered him a determined grin. “Shall we start with tidying up?”

* * *

 The girl perched, curled beneath her window, tresses stirring in the breeze, awaiting the proper hour. She watched the moon rise, an angry, russet horizon bleeding into black, lit by the full, frigid glow of the moon, but not a single shadow was cast through the courtyard below. She shivered.

Belle knew the hour had come.


End file.
